Monthly Archives: June 2015

The Operations Working Group set out their detailed plans for the server upgrades they’d like to do: A big new database server, new tile servers and an imagery server. Thanks to your generosity, we now have the funds in place to make that a reality.

This has been our largest fund-raising target, but given the scale, reach and impact of OpenStreetMap, £56,000 is a small amount of money. For the thousands of data consumers, and millions of map end-users viewing OpenStreetMap, or the mega-corporations our maps are compared against. Don’t we deserve more? Lots of interesting discussions around this topic, but I will just say for now… Yes we do! And of course you’re very welcome to donate more: donate.openstreetmap.org

The OpenStreetMap Foundation remains open for donations. If you have ideas on how to get more recognition and big donations for OpenStreetMap, this is always welcome too!

For now though, we want to say a big Thank You again to Mapzen and Mapbox who made big donations to kick things off, to various other organisations who made donations to support us, and to all the individuals (more than 1200 of them!) who generously chose to put their personal money towards the OpenStreetMap cause.

Events in 2015

Can’t wait till 2016? There are a number of upcoming OSM-centered conferences in 2015, including SotM-LatAm in Chile in September, and SotM-Scotland in October. There are also many webinars, mapping parties, coding events and socials planned for 2015.

In what is turning out to be a busy 2015, these follow earlier events: SotM-FR in Brest, France; SotM-US at the UN’s New York headquarters in New York City; and HOT Summit in Washington DC.

All these events are organised by the wider OpenStreetMap community. Thanks go to the relevant organising teams for hosting these events.

After the success of the global State of the Map 2014 conference realized last November in Buenos Aires, the Latin America OpenStreetMap community is organizing its first continental conference.

The State of the Map Latin America will take place in Santiago, Chile, on September 4th, 5th and 6th. The conference will gather the Latin American and global mappers to share community and entrepreneurial knowledge, techniques and experiences in OpenStreetMap. The official languages for the event are Spanish and Portuguese, with some talks in English as well.

Santiago is the capital of Chile, its financial heart and biggest city, concentrating approximately 35% of the population of the country (6.5 million people). The event will take place on the days before the AbreLatam (September 7-8) and ConDatos (September 9-10), two of the biggest Open Data conferences in Latin America.

We’re seeing a steady flow of donations large and small coming in. At £36,052 we’re well over half way to our fund-raising goal. A big thanks to Mapzen and Mapbox who kicked off in style, each with a donation of US$20,000!

With awareness spreading quickly now, we’ve doubled the number of people donating just in the past 24 hours! Each supporter can choose to be named on the donations page, and leave a message to us, so if you didn’t do so already, make a donation now!

It’s upgrade time! OpenStreetMap is growing, servers are projected to hit capacity by mid 2015. OpenStreetMap is a global community of dedicated and resourceful people, giving their time to make the best map of the world. Those mappers’ contributions are the largest part of the project. However, contributors need infrastructure such as a repository to share their contributions and services that help them make the map and talk to each other. We are raising funds to keep these services running and improve them, so that everyone else can continue making an amazing map.

The Operations Working Group of the OpenStreetMap Foundation manage the core servers of OpenStreetMap and plan server upgrades to scale for our growing community. They make purchasing decisions around server hardware with the budget they have available. With your help, we can continue to grow the OpenStreetMap infrastructure to support the growth of the community and map. See the FAQ for some answers to frequently-asked questions, or get in touch to start a discussion.

What else can we do to support OpenStreetMap?

Join us! Aside from funds to upgrade our hardware what we need most are people. Whatever your background – technical or not – you can help OpenStreetMap. Here are just a few of the many possible ways to get more involved:

For individuals:

If you have contributed data to OpenStreetMap, or time to helping organise mapping activities: thank you for everything you’ve already done!
OpenStreetMap only survives because of the work put in by thousands of hard-working and selfless volunteer contributors. If you are one of these people, then you are already doing a great thing for the project.

If you would like to do more, then you can:

Join the Foundation and support the body which supports (but doesn’t control) the project. By being a part of the Foundation, your voice can be heard in discussions about how the Foundation is run.

Join a Working Group and give your time to solving those issues which require greater commitment. Being on a Working Group, as the name suggests, is hard work and requires diligence, but can make a huge difference to the project.

Donate money to the hardware funding drive. Whatever you can spare will be gratefully received and put towards hardware which is necessary for the continued growth and success of the project.

For companies:

Whether you use OpenStreetMap data in your products and services, or are just interested in helping, corporate sponsorship of OpenStreetMap events and hardware helps the project to keep going and be inclusive.

If your company would like to help the project grow and succeed, then you can: